DENVER — Fifteen hundred miles from where an air ball sucked the life out of one arena Saturday, a local kid reached his hand out and took the life out of another one. There was a glaring connection between those two events, even if nobody in either gym cared much to acknowledge it.

They noticed it in South Texas, though. They noticed that the man who’d supposedly packed up all of their potential for playoff excellence and taken it with him to Canada didn’t quite deliver in his Toronto debut. And they noticed, surely, that one of the players he left behind sealed a stirring Spurs victory with a move directly out of their old star’s repertoire.

In terms of postseason appetizers, San Antonio couldn’t have found Saturday more delicious if it had been doused in salsa and sour cream.

This might not last, of course, as playoff series have a habit of changing in a hurry. Kawhi Leonard has a long enough track record — and Derrick White has a short enough one — to assume that the way their respective Game 1 performances ended might not linger past the weekend.

But for a day, at least, all of the angst and all of the hand-wringing and all of the self-doubt left over from the turmoil of a year ago floated away, into the ether somewhere between Ontario and Colorado.

Leonard, the undeniably transcendent talent whose presence had turned the Raptors into legitimate championship contenders, played well for most of Toronto’s playoff opener against Orlando and dominated at times. But on a pivotal late possession, he turned down a shot on a drive and passed instead to teammate Marc Gasol — the right play, possibly, but not the aggressive one — before Gasol missed what would have been a go-ahead 3-pointer.

Then, after the Magic took the lead at the other end, Leonard heaved a long jumper that missed the rim entirely. The Raptors, who for years had been synonymous with playoff letdowns, suddenly found themselves trying to stave off another, and they didn’t have DeMar DeRozan around to blame this time.

To be sure, DeRozan didn’t play the hero for his new team Saturday, either. He scored 18 points in the Spurs’ 101-96 victory over the Nuggets at the Pepsi Center, and hit three key jump shots in the fourth quarter, but missed a couple that could have iced it in the final two minutes.

Instead, the Spurs needed Denver’s Jamal Murray to misfire on his own open look with 13.3 seconds left, and then, after LaMarcus Aldridge coolly hit two free throws to put San Antonio up by three points, they needed the kind of defensive theatrics many thought they’d traded away last summer.

It was eerie, really. Just like Leonard had done so many times while wearing silver and black, and just like Leonard did once in February in the closing seconds of the Raptors’ victory over the Spurs in Toronto, White applied full-court pressure to an accomplished ball-handler before lulling him into a false sense of security.

Just short of midcourt, White — who grew up just a few miles from Denver — made his move, and if he was wearing cornrows you might have sworn it was the guy who used to be the Spurs’ defensive stopper. White flicked his arm across Murray’s body, poking the ball away in a blur, then scooped it up and darted the other way. Murray had no choice but to foul him, letting White put the game away at the free-throw line.

Later, a Spurs staffer grinned when asked if White’s steal was reminiscent of Leonard, but didn’t bite on the comparison. When Rudy Gay heard the same question, he chuckled but shook his head.

There is no upside, obviously, to the Spurs talking about Leonard anymore, just as there is no benefit to DeRozan talking about the Raptors. Everyone involved has long since moved on.

But not everyone watching has. So when people see symmetry like they did Saturday — Leonard’s new team falling victim to an upset while his old team pulled one off — it’s difficult not to consider how the next week might change a storyline or two.

The Spurs don’t need Toronto to lose to feel comfortable about the trade they made, or to justify their reasoning for it. But the moment the deal was done, everybody understood the ramifications. If Leonard went on to lead the Raptors to the NBA Finals, and if the Spurs were stuck in the limbo of annual first-round exits, it was going to hurt.

Mike Finger has worked for the Express-News since 1999, writing about the Texas Longhorns, the Big 12, the NBA and the NFL before becoming a sports columnist. He's covered 13 Spurs postseasons, six Final Fours and more than a dozen college bowl games.

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